Below the Line

by Howard Michael Gould

  Waldo thought about it, seriously thought about it, and had to nod. “Yeah.” Before she could say, I knew it, he said, “Buy you a cheeseburger.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “What a bucket of crap.” Lorena was taking the canyon way too fast again.

  “Which part? That this Conor kid came over?”

  “No. That she was messing with her BFF’s boyfriend? That, I believe. That she didn’t blow him? Bullshit.”

  He was reminded again that this game—kicking the case around with Lorena, detective to detective—wasn’t going to get him anywhere closer to solving it. She had always been a more than competent PI, but her Stevie derangement syndrome wouldn’t let her see anything clearly. He told her about the rest of the pool house conversation, up to but not including the hug. He also told her that he believed Stevie’s grief was genuine, but even that was another trigger.

  “Who do you think killed Paula?” she snapped. “Joel? Because I don’t see that.”

  “I’d like to know what Roy Wax was doing tonight.” He knew he was swinging wildly but felt he had to throw out a name.

  “Roy Wax? Why? Because he got really, really mad when Paula accused him of hiring illegals—last Thanksgiving? You’re doing it again, trying to protect Stevie.” Was he? His ability to resist the girl sexually didn’t mean she wasn’t putting some kind of voodoo on him. Lorena said, “At least check out her fucking alibi before you swallow it.”

  She was right. He said, “Okay. Tomorrow.”

  But it wasn’t enough. “Every step of this, you’ve been protecting this girl. Why don’t you protect Mariana?”

  “Mariana? What does—? We protected Mariana. How could we have done any more to—? Why even bring her up?”

  But Lorena shut down. Like she had already taken something too far.

  “What?” said Waldo. “What aren’t you saying?”

  She didn’t answer, all the way down the canyon, all the rest of the way to her house.

  When she put the car in park, though, and killed the engine, she didn’t dash into the house the way he expected her to. She sat behind the wheel for a long while. He waited her out.

  Finally: “I told you about after my father, right?”

  “Not a lot.”

  “But my aunt . . .”

  “Who raised you? His sister?”

  “Yeah.” She studied a cuticle in the weak glow of the garage opener. “There were two of us.”

  Waldo kept very still, hanging on the rest.

  “I had a sister. Sofia. She was born; she didn’t die with my mother.” It flew in the face of everything she’d ever told him and for a minute he had trouble accepting it as true. “Around when I finished high school my aunt got married again. I was eighteen, and with the husband—the house felt small, you know? So I moved out. A year or two later . . .” She had trouble saying it. “I was into myself . . . I had school, and a room in a house with some people, and there were boys . . . and Sofia was twelve, thirteen . . . I wasn’t paying her a lot of attention . . . and all of a sudden . . . she was gone.”

  Waldo watched her carefully, waiting to see if that meant what it sounded like.

  “Looking back, I don’t know, maybe this new ‘uncle’ was doing stuff to her. Whatever it was . . . she disappeared, and nobody ever heard from her again.

  “So the thing is, whenever I see a girl like Mariana . . .” She stopped a tear with a fingertip before it had a chance to happen. “Every time.”

  “Jesus.”

  She looked at him. “You understand what I’m telling you?”

  He took a deep breath and said, “Yeah. That there’s a difference between Stevie Rose and girls with real problems.”

  He reached for her hand but she pulled it away and looked him in the eye without warmth or communion.

  “No, Waldo. I’m telling you, a lot of people have real bad things to get past.” The garage opener light clicked off, leaving them in the dark. Slow and hard, she said, “But not everyone lets it turn them batshit.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  He hit the Percocet and she pretended to fall asleep right away. When he awoke in the morning, she was already off to wherever, this time without so much as a note.

  The bus downtown was rush-hour crowded and he stood most of the way, declining offered seats and clinging to the bar with his right hand, keeping his left close to his chin to keep the fresher wounds from being jostled. The ride was half an hour of start and stop, plenty of unstructured time for Lorena’s words to echo. Batshit. She had instigated their reunion and been its motor, so he’d taken the depth of her investment for granted, luxuriating in his own doubts without a thought that all this time she’d been harboring her own. Now she was forcing him to look at himself through her eyes and it was sobering: he wasn’t the man she’d been expecting when she first came up the mountain. Yes, she’d given it a game try, holding on to the dream she’d nursed during his missing years, and, yes, the connection had come roaring back, in its fashion, but still: he was not that man.

  Damaged, Jayne had called him. Kinder than batshit. Anyway, he was work now, a lot of work. And when the physical connection began to fray, why wouldn’t Lorena start to wonder whether he was worth it?

  And face it: maybe he wasn’t.

  It wasn’t stormy, like all their other endings, and that discomfited him even more. Maybe that meant this was the one that would stick.

  Waldo got off at Broadway and walked to the store where he’d bought his original Brompton before the move to the mountain. He was lucky to find a P6L in stock, though only in racing green, not his preferred black. With tax, it was going to run him close to two thousand dollars, a fifth of the amount he kept steadily in his Idyllwild checking account. It was a legitimate expense by any measure, but now one half of the client couple was dead, and could he really imagine presenting the survivor with a bill for a new bike?

  Of course not. But Lorena could. Which was why she was the one fit to build a business in the first place.

  All of which reminded him that now they’d have money issues to settle too. The prospect of their weeks—their years—ending in a cold coda of financial reckoning was almost too depressing to bear.

  * * *

  • • •

  “I’m here. Meet me out front.” He’d agreed to meet Cuppy at North Hollywood Division but wanted to avoid going inside and facing the bile and the ghosts if he could. He hung up and, working essentially one-handed, managed to chain his bike to the rack near the entrance, recalling the high drama even that simple act had led to last time he was here.

  He waited for Cuppy and leaned on the rack, looking out toward the parking lot and the traffic on Burbank beyond. Sure enough, one of those ghosts pulled up in a blue Prius.

  Captain Pam Tanaka got out of her car and headed toward him. She was a force of nature, blessed with beauty, intellect and killer political instincts, all of which fueled a dizzying rise to division command. Back in the days of conflagration around the time Waldo left the force, Pam was the rare friend who hadn’t turned on him completely. On his return this spring, though, he’d repaid that loyalty by embarrassing her in front of her charges when he felt she was stonewalling him on the Pinch case, a moment he still felt bad about.

  “Waldo,” she said with an ambiguous smile.

  “Pam.”

  “These noisy ones have a way of finding you.”

  “I was right,” he said now.

  He was trying to strike a tone of apology, but it must not have landed like he intended. Tanaka twitched and said, sharply, “But you’ve been wrong.” The reminder was unnecessary: Lydell Lipps was never further away from his thoughts than the Hundred Things were. He was stunned by its quiet cruelty.

  Waldo heard a grunt of surprise and turned to the entrance, where Cuppy paused midstride, fla
t-footed and awkward.

  Tanaka said, “Are you two meeting?”

  Cuppy said to his boss, “Waldo had some info to share.”

  “I hope you’re not sharing back with a PI working for our suspect. Especially when you told me it was a done deal.”

  “Understood.”

  Cuppy was a foot taller but the eyebrow she raised before continuing into the station lopped off a good eight inches.

  When the door closed behind her, Waldo said, “What’s a done deal?”

  “We’re going after Stevie for the deuce. Ouelette and the mommy.”

  Waldo said, “You got a match?” Ballistics linking the murders would be bad news for the girl. He needed to know.

  “You heard her,” said Cuppy, tipping his head after Tanaka. “I give you anything, she takes my other nut.” He straightened to full height, trying to reestablish the illusion of at least a little potency. “Anyway, I got this.”

  “Yeah? What if you don’t?” Waldo didn’t need to spell it out: if there was a ballistics match and Stevie’s alibi was good, then Cuppy was oh-for-two and thus—with Tanaka, at least—double-fucked. Cuppy’s eyes flickered, giving Waldo an opening. “Okay, I’ll give first. Seventy-nine’s stateside now. Moving right where Stevie went when she was off the radar. O.C. Gold Coast.”

  “What, you think you know shit DEA doesn’t?”

  “Now you do, too. Share it with them. Score a couple points. Hey, maybe they’re hiring.” Cuppy’s face fell. Waldo had been unable to resist the shot; Cuppy just pushed his buttons.

  But it had been expensive: the detective closed down, started for the entrance. There was no getting him to talk about the ballistics now. Waldo would have to offer something else.

  He said, “Stevie’s the tie to the seventy-nine. I can even give you the dealer she knows down there.”

  Cuppy turned back, intrigued. “I’m not stopping you.”

  “Name’s Marwin Amador. Santa Ana.”

  “Fuck is Princess Peach doing with a mook in Santa Ana named Marwin Amador?”

  “Amador works for her uncle. She knows him through the son, her cousin. Give you a bonus: Amador’s tied in with a scumbag named Tesoro. Gut says he’s the trigger.” That was pure smoke, but maybe peripherally useful: if LAPD buzzed the pimp, it could slow down whatever he might be planning for Lorena. Waldo said to Cuppy, “Now you.”

  Cuppy waved off Waldo’s info. “Duck tales. Usual Charlie Waldo bullshit.”

  “Makes you so sure?”

  “Your O.C. beaners—you going to tell me they had a problem with Paula Rose, too?”

  There was his answer. “You got a match.”

  “Same forty. Best link between the vics are the two Roses left standing. And I don’t see Papa Bear poisoning the pooch.”

  Shit, thought Waldo. And Cuppy was making sense about the Presa Canario, too: Joel looked comfortable with the beast, but Stevie had been away when they bought it and he could imagine it freaking her out, especially since she’d been living off in the pool house since. If she was going to shoot her mother, why not get the mom’s guard dog out of the way first?

  So it was going to come down to this Conor Jacoby and the timeline, how late the kid had been there with Stevie and what he was willing to tell. The rest of Stevie Rose’s life could be hanging on how pissed off some sixteen-year-old was about being sent home for the night without his blow job. Once again, Waldo was ready to quit the PI business. He said, “When you planning to arrest her?”

  Cuppy crossed his arms.

  “Do one thing for me,” said Waldo. “Give me twenty-four.”

  Cuppy snorted. “For old times’ sake?”

  “For a fifteen-year-old girl whose mother just got shot.” Cuppy held up his palms. Who just shot her mother. “Girl says she’s covered on the mom.”

  “I’m sure she does.”

  “I’ve got a name. Boy who wasn’t supposed to be there.”

  “Her specialty. You check it out?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Give it to me, I’ll do it.”

  “Right. I’m going to give you another teenager to bigfoot.” Cuppy shrugged indifference.

  “Hey,” Waldo said, “you’ll want to know if it checks—blows out your theory, but at least you can get ahead of it with Tanaka.” He was flailing; he’d already played that card one more time than was probably useful.

  Cuppy split the difference. “Six hours. And I want to hear from you every two.”

  Waldo took the deal.

  * * *

  • • •

  This time he had no trouble getting onto the campus and into Hexter’s office, where the headmaster braced himself against his desk like he was afraid to come out from behind it. He had already heard the rumor that Stevie Rose was now a suspect in her mother’s murder as well. Waldo asked to speak to the student Conor Jacoby, but Hexter said that giving access to students was a line he couldn’t cross. Waldo told him that he’d already interviewed Dionne Shapiro and Koy Lem and that he didn’t have the time to wait until after school to chase down Conor. He explained everything, again betraying Stevie’s confidence about betraying her bestie.

  Hexter didn’t want to hear any of it. He squeezed his eyes shut and slowly rocked his head back and forth.

  Waldo said, “If I can’t confirm Stevie’s alibi, LAPD’s going to walk in here and cuff her right in geometry class.”

  Hexter emitted a tiny, defeated moan. He rose and asked his assistant to find and fetch Conor Jacoby, and then to try to get one of Conor’s parents on the phone.

  The poor bastard was such a wreck that he didn’t even bump at Waldo’s obvious bluff. Stevie Rose, of course, wasn’t at school today and wouldn’t be coming anywhere near it for weeks.

  * * *

  • • •

  Hexter told Conor Jacoby, a beanpole with a wild thatch of red hair, to sit down. He told him, “You don’t have to answer any questions you’re uncomfortable with, and you’re allowed to leave anytime you want. Do you understand?”

  Conor nodded. The kid was literally shaking. He’d probably never been written up for breaking the dress code.

  Hexter cued Waldo to start. Waldo returned his gaze until the headmaster realized that he was expected to leave Waldo alone with the boy. “For Pete’s sake,” he muttered on the way out.

  Waldo asked Conor where he had been the night before.

  “At home, studying physics. Finals are coming up.”

  “Alone?”

  Conor said, “No, I had a tutor.”

  “Uh-huh.” The kid was so jumpy that Waldo checked to see if there was a puddle at his feet. “Did you see Stevie Rose last night? After the tutor left?”

  “No! She was there until eleven. Her name’s Jamie. She goes to Valley College. You can ask my parents. Nobody else came over afterwards—we have an alarm and everything.”

  “So you weren’t at Stevie’s house? Alone with her?”

  The jumpiness surged to full-blown panic. “No! God! Did she say that?” He read Waldo’s hesitation. “Shit! She’s trying to use me to mess with Dionne!” The boy was distraught. “Don’t tell Dionne Stevie said that, please? She gets crazy jealous, like of anything! Stevie knows that.” He put his face in his hands. “Why does that girl have to lie? All the time!”

  TWENTY-SIX

  There were no police cruisers at the Roses’ house now, no fire engines, no pricey attack dogs, no pricey attack lawyers, just a man looking more like the senior citizen he was. Waldo said, “Anyone else here?”

  “Only me,” said Joel. “Stevie’s in the guesthouse.”

  “Nobody watching her anymore?” Joel shook his head. “I need to talk to her again.”

  “The kitchen is still . . .” Joel choked on the rest of the thought. “There are special cleaning people coming.�
�� He led Waldo out to the pool and asked him to swing by his study when he was finished with Stevie.

  Waldo saw her through the locked glass door, huddled under a blanket on the daybed with her computer and earbuds. He rapped on the door, had to bang harder to get her attention. Under the blanket, she was wearing jeans, a hooded sweatshirt and a woolen beanie, explained by the Siberian Freon blast when she slid open the glass.

  Waldo said, “I talked to Conor Jacoby.”

  “I told you that was a secret!”

  “He said he wasn’t here last night.”

  She went back to her bed and her computer. “Not my problem.”

  He pushed her laptop closed.

  “What the—?”

  “Every time I stand up for you, you make me look like a sucker.”

  “Yeah, Waldo. Make this all about you.” The stream of venom he’d seen her turn on others was starting to gurgle in his direction. “Was it your mother who got killed? I don’t think so, Wal-do.” She said his name with an ugly, mocking English.

  “Tell me what really happened last night.”

  “What—you think I killed my own mother?”

  “The police do. They were ready to arrest you until I stopped them by telling them about Conor.”

  “You told the police about Conor? Oh. My. God!”

  “If I didn’t, you’d be in lockup right now.”

  “And of course you believe Conor, not me.”

  “I completely believe Conor, not you.”

  She huffed through her nose and stared lightning at him. Then she said, “I had to lie,” with a choler that gave Waldo a Paula Rose tingle.

  “Why did you have to lie?”

  “Because I was out here by myself. I had no proof of anything. And everybody already thinks I killed Mr. Ouelette.”

  “Look, if you didn’t do anything, you . . . cannot . . . tell . . . lies.”